Universal Basic Income Research Paper Example

📌Category: Economics
📌Words: 905
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 20 January 2022

The idea of Universal Basic Income has existed for centuries, with the first iterations being created in the 18th century. Despite the idea existing for hundreds of years, society has yet to settle on what form of it would work the best. And when societal issues such as sexism, systemic racism, and poverty are added to the conversation, the discussion becomes even more complex. “The Political Theory of Universal Basic Income” by Juliana Uhuru Bidadanure, disagrees with the idea of UBI. It is a full review and analysis of the modern idea and historical attempts at UBI. “Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?" by Howard Reed and Steward Lansley, agrees with the idea of UBI and goes into incredible detail on how it could be done. 

Bidadanure was a student and is now an assistant professor of Political Science at Stanford University and has published multiple articles and reviews. These were not only about universal basic income, but also about the overall distribution of wealth, income, and jobs in society. It can be said that the general topic of her discussions includes the idea of equality as a whole and its subtopics. She is also heavily qualified to discuss these topics, especially considering her teaching multiple classes at Stanford, those being ‘Universal Basic Income: The Philosophy Behind the Proposal’ and ‘Philosophy of Public Policy’.With this topic, it can be said that she somewhat disagrees with the idea of UBI being incorporated into society. This is specifically due to the surplus of ideas around it, but the lack of a base level idea of what it should be. She also heavily disagrees with the ways scholars think of how and who to distribute the money to. 

The review uses copious amounts of logos around not only modern day ideas of UBI but also its predecessors. Those include the ideas of Thomas Paine (1797), Joseph Charlier (1848), and James Meade (1935-1993). She also includes political figures and activists that wanted UBI to be incorporated into society to be a method of ending systemic oppression, with the most well-known examples being Martin Luther King Jr., and the many members of the Black Panther Party. The majority of people cited within the review are very credible, being economists and renowned philosophers known for their ideas around societal issues. 

Because of this review being purely analytical, it is most professional and eloquent language being used, excluding cited quotes from authors that ‘boldly’ described their opinions.  “...forcing them into jobs that are precarious, degrading, dangerous, alienating, or pointless—what Graeber (2018) terms bullshit jobs.” However, word choice is subjective in this review. Frequently when describing people who would profit off of UBI without contributing to society through labor, terms relating to laziness are used. Albeit, her strong language is used to push points trying to be made, but very often they backfire and make it seem as if she is being highly critical of these people in an unbiased article. In reference to the organization of information, towards the beginning when introducing the idea of UBI, she begins with listing many people who have agreed and theorized about it. When describing their ideas, she goes into extreme detail about how, where, and when they wanted the money to be distributed. Because of this being purely analytical, there are very few examples of pathos. In one of the only examples, she describes how despite the fact that most theories against the idea of UBI are centered around forcing recipients to have a job or apply to jobs to receive benefits. However, the way employment is spoken about makes it seem as if it is perfect, despite it being far from so. “They can be demeaning, degrading, hazardous to one’s physical and mental health, oppressive, disempowering, isolating, etc. The labor market increasingly offers precarious opportunities without jobs or income security (Standing 2011)”. This is not purely pathos, and focuses less on the negative aspects of employment for job seekers and more so how those aspects affect the argument being made. There are also no obvious examples of ethos, and it is heavily found in the subtext.

The second article, "Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?" by Howard Reed and Steward Lansley, agrees with the idea of UBI being incorporated into society. 

The two authors of this article have incredible amounts of experience in the field of economics. Howard Reed is the director of Landman Economics and was previously the chief economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research. He also attended the University of Oxford and has a Bachelor's degree in…. Stewart Lansley is also an economist, who went to University of Southampton, has MSc in Economics, and is a council member of the Progressive Economy Forum. In addition, he has written fifteen novels, written from 1983 to the most recent releasing in 2022. The majority of these are written about poverty, finances and economics. The authors are both from Britain, meaning their essays are written from the perspective and history of their country. This article in particular is specifically written with data and information about poverty and societal issues from the U.K., while the previous review is written with the U.S. and the U.K in mind.

This article uses information dating back to the 1930’s, but more recently 2005 to 2016. Any information before the 2000’s describes the 

The text somehow manages to not only be professional but also somewhat casual at the same time. There isn’t a large amount of specific word choice to support or strengthen the claims, but more so situational data and theoretical claims for the idea of UBI and how it could be introduced. These theoretical claims, called ‘schemes’, go into incredible amounts of detail on the financial ways on how UBI could be introduced. These schemes use precise numbers and graphs, such as on pg. 27, 29, 30, 31, and so on.

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